- Crude oil's brief bump following Fed Chair Powell's dovish interest rate remarks failed to hold up, as January WTI crude closed -2.5% to $50.29/bbl, the lowest settlement in nearly 14 months; Brent -2.4% to $58.76/bbl.
- U.S. crude inventories rose for the 10th week in a row, jumping by a much larger than forecast 3.6M barrels to 450.5M barrels - the highest since Thanksgiving week in 2017 - even as U.S. refinery activity climbed three percentage points to a 96% utilization rate.
- WTI has plunged 34% since hitting a multiyear high of $76.41/bbl a barrel in early October.
- "Crude not being able to rally with risk-on [sentiment] across the board and U.S. dollar weakness in all asset classes says a lot," says Tariq Zahir of Tyche Capital Advisors, adding that "a break of $50 is inevitable" for WTI.
- Brent crude failed to maintain an early boost from a supply outage in the North Sea.
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